


Missteps and Make-ups

by Kelly123



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Kiss With a Fist, One Shot, Unspecified Setting, ambiguous timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 11:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kelly123/pseuds/Kelly123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaime finally makes a move.</p><p>Brienne's response really shouldn't have surprised him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missteps and Make-ups

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't placed at any particular point in the story. Do with it what you will!

Her knuckles ache from the impact, and the sight of his crimson Lannister blood splattered across her reddening skin does little to assuage the fear that has engulfed her. 

She doesn't quite know what's just happened or what she's done, only that she had to and she still can't quite believe it. She wants to tell him that, but her lips have gone bone-dry and her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth, making speech next to impossible. She struggles to swallow, letting her fist unclench and drop down next to her, looking anywhere and everywhere but at him.

She can't, and he shouldn't have and she wishes it could all be taken back.

He just stands there before her, nose dripping obscenely, and stares at her. She can't see them, but she can feel those eyes which seem to delve far beneath her armor, past dented metal and boiled leather and through to the little girl who trembles under the weight of his gaze. He had said she would love to know how it felt to be a woman, and mayhaps she would have, in the past, but right now the opposite is true. She feels a woman, a weak, weak woman far too much like the naive child she had tried so hard to put behind her. And it hurts, being a girl hurts, so much more than blades or battle had, and she has no idea how to bandage such wounds. Burning, her eyes fill with unshed tears and she almost wishes to drive her fist into his face again, for that was something she knew, and was familiar with, and was good at. But she cannot not hit him like this, not when he makes no motion to defend himself. Eerily still and even more uncharacteristically silent, he does not move, just continues to drip blood down his tunic and into the dirt between them. 

If she could not respond with fists, she wishes she might flee. It is not honorable to do so, mayhaps, but if she were truly the child she felt in this moment then she would run as far away from all of this as her legs would carry her. They shake though, the tightly bound muscles in her thighs useless while her knees feel as wobbly as a newborn foal. One thing is for certain, though, they cannot remain as they are, for she cannot not fall apart in front of him...because of him.

Taking a step back on legs which blessedly do not collapse beneath her, she moves to leave him with as much dignity as she can muster when he finally responds. His arm, the left, shoots out from where it lies at his side, and his remaining fingers wrap themselves around her wrist. It is a firm grip, but not a bruising one and yet her skin burns where his comes in contact with his once more.

She doesn't struggle to pull away, although some part of her screams she must. At first she is too shaken to respond as such, but then he speaks and his words extract the remaining bits of air from her lungs, leaving her struggling to keep from shaking.

"I'm not Hunt, and I'm not Connington."

His voice is low and hoarse, strained with emotion which she feels echoed in the pits of her belly as the sounds traverses the distance between them and breaks upon her. Such sounds do nothing to quell the tears which continue to build behind her eyelids, and she forces her gaze to remain locked upon the ground rather than chance a look at what might lie in the depths of his own.

"I'm neither of those men, my lady..." He breathes harshly through his nose, "and I'm sure as hell not Cersei."

He breathes her name softly, and yet it does not sting as she had thought to expect.He does not utter the sound in reverence, as he might have been apt to do in the past, but rather with an air of dismissal, as though one might speak of a ghost. Certainly not as he would have spoken of his other half.

His other arm, the one which ended at the wrist in a badly scarred stump, moves towards her. She feels him hesitate, and she doesn't dare to breathe in the heavily-weighted moments before she senses the pressure of it against the skin beneath her chin. She is not unused to him touching her...but touches such as these, gentle and deliberate, with none of their usual force, are another entity entirely. He gently tilts her head up towards his own so that their eyes might meet, and despite their proximity it still manages to come as a surprise and she squeezes her lids shut in fear.

A year, a week a minute before he would have made a jape at her response, her shyness and naivety, and now she desperately wishes he would. She yearns for something familiar, anything to stifle the terror of so much which is unknown to her, but such relief does not come.

"I'm not here to hurt you Brienne. I know have in the past, and I cannot atone for my cruelty, but I am...sorry. I've changed, though probably not as much as you deserve. I'm not that man anymore, I'm not the kingslayer...I thought you knew that?"

As she deserved? Since when did she deserve anything but a disdainful glance and so many mocking words? She feels his breath fall against her face and still keeps her eyes screwed tightly shut. She did know he wasn't the sort to act as he had before, and she did know he had changed, but he had frightened her, and she had responded as though he were still his less than honorable self. 

"Ser Jaime, I...I..."

"Please look at me Brienne."

Her name upon his lips, just her name, so...tenderly, forces her to finally look upon his face.

He smiles, and he would not be the man he is if there is not a cocky twist to the corner of his lips. His hand still on her arm traces small circles against the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist though, and some of her fear dissipates. It is replaces by nervous anticipation, quick and bubbly in her blood, spreading out from her her touches her to encompass her whole body is a heated blush.

His green eyes darken as they gaze into her blue ones, and she is almost disappointed when he closes them for a moment and removes his stump from under her chin.

"I apologize for my actions earlier. I will not kiss you again-"

His voice cuts off at the sound she makes, a little huff of disapproval she cannot believe has slipped from her lips. She claps a too-large hand over her too-large lips, and her eyes grow wide. His grin does as well, and he slips his hand down from her wrist to interlock his fingers with her own. 

"You did not let me finish, Brienne." (She should be ashamed by how much she enjoys hearing her name spoken like this). "I was only saying that I will not kiss you again until you are ready. I am sorry that my first attempt caught you unawares. I only hope you know now that my intentions are entirely honorable-well, at least as honorable as I am capable of. You do...you do know that, right?"

There is a hint of insecurity she has never heard in his tone before, and she wonders if anyone else has been privy to it either. It makes her bold...or at least as bold as she is capable of. 

In the very least, it is enough to remove her hand from her mouth and speak.

"I'm sorry, for your nose. I thought...I was afraid you-"

"I understand. Mayhaps though, next time, could you only kiss me back instead of bludgeoning me with your fist?"

At the thought of 'next time,' at the promise of the fact that Jaime wanted her to kiss him back, she inhales deeply and unthinkingly takes in his lips. His perfect, pink...bloodstained lips.

He notices. And he laughs. And her heart feels like it might soar out of her chest when he squeezes her hand and she somehow manages to laugh back.

"Come now, we must wash my blood off us both. Separately of course, I shall take no chances of furthering injuring myself at your hands today. Obviously, I cannot control myself around you, wench, and it frightens me to think what you might do if I tried to kiss you while we were more...indisposed."

"Jaime!"

"Oh don't play coy with me, I've seen you peeking while I'm in the river."

Her response was filled with far more bluster than she would have liked, but she cannot keep the smile which pulls her lips far back over crooked teeth from appearing on her face. To say that she would never hit Jaime again was an oath she could not make in good faith, but she knew he could handle her blows and her tears alike regardless. And he, for some reason unbeknownst to her, was evidently willing to match her.

Once she vowed not to give herself to any man who was unable to defeat her in battle. Whether or not Ser Jaime might be able to do so was a fact which she, surprisingly enough, had little interest in. She did not wish for him to defeat her, to establish his dominance over her, and she sensed he felt the same. Moreso, she rather preferred to move in tandem with him, fighting alongside one another instead of in opposition. Their rhythm was still not perfectly in sync, as evidenced by the blood on his face and the pain in her knuckles, but it was getting there. And she was excited to see where it might take them.

Sooner, rather than later.

So when he appeared before her, hair freshly wet and face scrubbed cleaned, she felt an anticipation well up in her chest in hopes that this 'next time' might not be so far away.

**Author's Note:**

> Aren't these two just the cutest!?


End file.
